Tuesday, March 26, 2013

adventures in the little city - farmer's market

The adventure last week was to take the train all the way under Twin Peaks to the other side of the hill to the foot of Market street where the rail meets the water. The Ferry Building is one of those destinations where you take out of town visitors to eat ridiculous amounts of delicious food, drink really crazy awesome coffee and go home with way too much cheese and chocolate. Tuesdays there is a farmer's market outside from 10-2 so ee found ourselves taking the "choo-choo" down there in search of lunch, flowers (ranunculus are in season! my favorite!) and some delicious food item in season to bring home.

I held M's hand and let her lead. She wanted to go see the eggman, commenting on the "doodle-doos" on his sign, and that he had "egx." Up to every stand, enunciating the letters she could of every food she recognized. "Carrrrts." "Org." "Honeeee." And then a question. "Peaz?"

PEAPODS! M enjoyed trying her first fresh peas from the pods - they were the first of the season and she ate 10 of them! New favorite - fresh peapods! And the bonus "booaaat" flotilla after you are done with the peas inside. The look in M's eyes when she bit into a clementine and then was able to choose one out for herself to buy - wow. She was stoked. Also a good way to test foods in the field to bring home things kiddo will eat because they picked them out themselves. (She is very possessive about the clementines she chose - she knows which ones in the fruit bowl are HERS.)

I learned to not underestimate what my child might want to eat for lunch. The great thing about the Tuesday market at the Ferry Building is that there are so many good vendors with prepared food for the lunchtime crowd. They start to wander in around 1145 and at about 1 its lines and madness. I could not even walk past Wise Son's Deli stand which was the first in the row of delicious smelling foodstands. MOST DELICIOUS REUBAN SANDWICH. I found for M something good and familiar, a delicious tamale with yams and black beans. We shared one of the tables behind the Blue Bottle cart with another mom and toddler and I didn't notice that M, who was sitting on my lap at the table, put down her fork and was eating HALF my reuban. The mom laughed and said M probably saw how much I was enjoying it so she wanted to try it too! Next time, getting two things I find delicious that she hasn't tried yet and sharing them both. Or we keep it simple and split a reuban and matzo ball soup.

So yeah. More adventures to come. There is so much to see and do in this tiny city. People think of San Francisco in ways that people (me) think and want to go to Paris, that it is a romantic and special place. I go through waves of seeing it that way, and then it just being the place I live and all the crap that goes along with that and then fall in to the same neighborhood ruts. The last time we were in Olympia a friend talked about walking in The City was like you were dropped into the picture postcard of San Francisco, that there was no difference between the fantasy and reality, that it was sort of unreal how just beautiful it is (heavily paraphrasing here) I realized at that moment that I was not living in the present as much as I wanted to. As things change here so quickly, its easy to focus on whats gone, whats about to be edged out, little bit of sadness to try remap your experience here again. Since our trip I have been working on how to focus on enjoying this silly place. Making new maps. Living here in the city, now. Our family living our life in this bizarre, magical, frustrating and infinitely inspiring place.